Christie Scandal Report Blames Dumped Female Staffer

A new report issued by Governor Chris Christie's lawyers revealed that—surprise—the New Jersey politician is not to blame in that whole George-Washington-Bridge-traffic-jam-revenge-plot fiasco. For the "comprehensive and exhaustive"—as Christie's lead lawyer put it—internal investigation, the team interviewed 70 people and looked over 250,000 documents, including information from staffers' work and private email accounts, cellphones and telephone records. Who is to blame? The report points fingers at two people: David Wildstein, a longtime Christie ally, who appears to have had some sort of vendetta against Fort Lee's access lanes and who the lawyer alleges held a "bizarre personal and political animus" against Christie, and Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, who sent that first incriminating e-mail, and the report points out, just broke up with her boyfriend.

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The report states that Kelly wrote that e-mail just after her relationship with another ex-Christie staffer, Bill Stepien, "had cooled, apparently at Stepien's behest." It goes on to say that "events in Kelly's personal life may have had some bearing on her subjective motivations and state of mind." Because obviously the first thing you think after being dumped is "you know what would probably make me feel better? 'traffic problems in Fort Lee.'"

The "findings" of the report are not only one-sided, they're downright offensive. While Kelly might be to blame for much of Bridgegate, painting her as a snubbed woman whose feelings got in the way of her job is more than just sexist, it's lazy. Like ending a movie with an alien invasion or wrapping up a TV series by revealing it was all a dream, saying a woman's emotional distress is the root of a major political scandal is a diversion tactic, and a weak one at that.

"It reads more like a novel than a work of fact," Assemblyman John Wisniewski, co-chair of the legislative panel investigating the lane closures, said of the details of Kelly and Stepien's relationship in the report. "It seems like it's a rush to judgment to come to a conclusion to provide the governor with a talking point so he can attempt to put this behind him. But the report has factual holes."

Christie's lawyer contends the details of the relationship were included because "it might explain a lack of communication between the two of them during a critical period." But it reads more as a salacious bit of gossip to focus on and an attempt to paint Kelly as a weak, emotional, volatile woman. Kelly might be guilty of a lot when it comes to the lane closure scandal, but she isn't guilty for being a woman. Because would the report read the same if she was a man?